The invention relates to a table for use in supporting sheet material, such as cloth, in a spread condition while it is cut by a cutter to form pattern pieces or other components used in making clothing, upholstery or similar articles, and deals more particularly with such a table particularly well adapted for use as part of a cutting machine wherein the spread material is at least partially held in place and/or compressed by means of a vacuum applied to the undersurface of the material and wherein it is cut by a reciprocating knife or other mechanical cutting element which penetrates into the upper portion of the table.
In fabricating items from cloth and similar sheet material a common cutting method is to first spread the material, either in a single layer or as a layup of a number of layers, onto the upwardly facing horizontal support surface of a cutting table and to then cut the material along desired two-dimensional lines of cut either by hand guided cutters or by means of automatically controlled cutters moveable in two coordinate directions over the table in response to commands from an associated controller. Since the material to be cut is often relatively wide and since the marker or set of patterns to be cut from the material is often quite long, cutting tables are necessarily of correspondingly large size. They further should be of a rigid stable construction so as not to sway, deflect or vibrate during the cutting process. They should also be rugged so as to have a reasonably long service life and desirably they should be of modularized construction so that two or more tables can be joined end to end as modules to provide an overall table of any one of a number of possible lengths.
In recent years cutting methods have also often used a vacuum system associated with the cutting table for applying a vacuum to the underside of the material being cut to aid in holding the material to the supporting surface and/or to compress the material during the cutting procedure. Also, positive air pressure is sometimes used in place of the vacuum to aid in placing the material onto or removing it from the supporting surface. Still further, many cutting methods used at the present time employ reciprocating cutting knives, rotary cutting knives, or similar cutting elements which pass entirely through the material being cut during the cutting process and penetrate to some degree into the bed of material forming the material supporting surface, various types of bristle beds having been developed to provide a table with the ability to work with such a penetrating cutter.
In the past cutting tables providing various ones or all of the features mentioned above have been relatively expensive to manufacture. They are also generally quite heavy so as to be difficult to ship and to move from one place to another in a cutting room, and sometimes the dimensions of the tables are such that they do not fit easily or at all into trucks or shipping containers of standard size.
The general object of this invention, is, therefore, to provide a sheet material cutting table which is of a relatively inexpensive lightweight construction but which nevertheless is very rigid and resistant to deflection and vibration during use.
A further object of the invention is to provide such a table which includes provision for the application of vacuum and/or positive air pressure to the underside of sheet material spread on its supporting surface; and a still further object is to provide a vacuum system wherein the vacuum is applied in a sectionalized manner with the table including a simple, inexpensive means with few moving mechanical parts for controlling the sectionalization of the vacuum.
Other objects of the invention are to provide a table of the foregoing character which includes a bristle bed for use with a penetrating cutting element and to provide a table which may be easily partially disassembled to reduce its size for shipping purposes.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.